This is my first guide in PlayDota Forums. This guide is about a new Intelligence hero, Dragonus the Skywrath Mage. He is one of my favorite heroes. He is a powerful spell caster, much like Zues. He can harass early game because of his spammy and strong nukes he have. So now, let's go the parts of this guide.

Pros
He can harass early game.
Spammy spells.
Powerful Ultimate that can fry enemy units in the area.
Can Silence to any escaping heroes and amplify any magical damage they have taken.
Have a fast move speed (about 315)so he can escape easily.
Can last hit/deny units properly.
Nice physical damage.
High Intelligence gain.
Nice nuking slow.
Easy to use.
Can kill fragile heroes easily.
Easy to practice.

Dragonus is a sky-bound sorcerer astute in the arts of arcane warfare. Mystical in nature and veiled in secret motives he joined the sentinel to battle the scourge. He is said to come from the ancient bloodline of blood elves that has ascended to unknown heights in the arts of mystical magic. It's suspected that Invoker and Dragonus were prodigy's of ancient time and were fighting for the prestige title of the supreme mage. The art of his supreme knowledge of magic enables him to seal any magic and his Mystic Flare is capable of burning any foe in matter of seconds. Many allies are proud to have strode alongside this mythical being, but few enemies have lived to survive the full extent of his mystical arsenal.

Notes
• Damage type: magical
• The projectile moves very slowly (500 ms) and you have 325 vision around it

Your first skill to be used. It can use to be harass, nuke or kill an enemy unit with this. The range is very long. It can also track an enemy unit wherever it goes because the projectile had a small vision. maybe it can be dodge by blinking or turning invisible. Intelligence items can be great on him because of the additional damage to this spell. So abuse this spell.

Concussive Shot

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Ability Type: Active
Targeting Type: Instant
Ability Hotkey: T
With Dragon like intuition, the Skywrath Mage releases a compact ball of magical lightning at the closest visible hero within 1600 AoE. Upon impact the ball bursts slowing enemies by 40% for 4 seconds and dealing damage around the target.

Level: 1/2/3/4
Mana Cost: 110 at all levels
Cooldown: 20 seconds at all levels
Casting Range: 1600 at all levels
Area of Effect: 200 at all levels
Duration: 4 seconds at all levels
Allowed Targets: Enemy heroes
Effects: Deals 50/100/150/200 damage and slows in an AoE

Notes
• Damage type: magical
• Does not work when no heroes are in range or heroes are in fog.

Your one and only disable. Its synergy with Mystic Flare (it can be discussed later) is GREAT. It be used to chase an enemy or escape an enemy. So use this properly. Don't rely much of this spell when escaping because some heroes cannot be slowed down (e.g Lycanthrope (Shapeshift Form) ).

Ancient Seal

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Ability Type: Active
Targeting Type: Unit
Ability Hotkey: R
Dragonus draws a mystical rune on the enemy that amplifies all spell damage against them and snuffs out their ability to cast spells for a few seconds.

It has no notes. It can "snuffs out" the enemy spells and amplify you and your teammates' magical damage. Its synergy with your magical damaged spells is good. Use this to the enemy's powerful nuker or to the escaping enemies who have invisibility, stun etc. .

Mystic Flare

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Ability Type: Active
Targeting Type: AoE
Ability Hotkey: E
Dragonus uses his ultimate magical ability to conjure a precise and violent mystical field that lays waste to his adversaries. Deals massive damage distributed evenly among any heroes in the AoE over 2 seconds.

Notes
• Damage type: magical
• Does not affect or count creeps. Deals damage over time in the area.

Your OMG Ultimate that can drive enemies very mad. Its damage and cool down is VERY LOW. But you need accuracy and proper disable before you use this so that it can deal tremendous damage in a small area (about 170 AoE)over 2 seconds. Abusing this is VERY GREAT!

Your alternate build. Don't also use this as your rigid build as you see, you have low mana pool and low Intelligence at early levels. But the advantage is to counter some carries so they can't farm easily.

Heroes

Allies

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Massive disablers and nukers.These heroes are good for Dragonus. It seems I almost put all heroes there.

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Mana Re-chargers.They are also good for Dragonus. He needs a lot of mana for spells.

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His great mate.He used Sprout, you used Mystic Flare....PROFIT!

Enemies

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Carries.You cannot battle them alone. They are very strong and powerful physical damagers because your armor is very low (about 3 when you reached level 25). Messing their farming is good so they can't overpower you.

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Nukers.Your bad enemies, more worse than the carries. Don't let them feed you. Overpowering them is good.

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Silencers. They mess up your spell casting combo. Killing them first in team clashes is better so they won't make you "a man riding with a bird and throwing something in their face very hard".

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Your worst nightmares.The three of them will BURN your mana, making you a useless spell caster. And Doom Bringer will make you a "burning, flying bird, frying you to crisp".

Items

Starting Items

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This is your Starting Build. These items provides you stats, survival etc. ..

Core Items

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/

These items are good for your Mid Game. Some of your Core items can be turned into powerful Intelligence items (e.g Bloodstone, Orchid).It's your choice which Boots do you want in your Core Build.

Luxury Items

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These powerful Intelligence items is the BEST for you. These items provide you Intelligence, Health and Mana Regeneration, Health and Mana Increase, and various active effects for you or to your enemies (e.g Guinsoo, Orchid, Shiva's..). Boots of Travel provides you extra move speed and a free teleport anywhere you want. (if you add Dragonus' Move Speed and Boots of Travel extra move speed; 315 + 100 = 415.. Very fast huh...)

Situational Items

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For your survival from ganks and clashes. Because of your fragility, these items can be good to you. Buying 1 or 2 of these items will increase you survival ability.

Rejected Items

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Remember: you are not a CARRY, you are a POWERFUL spell caster.

It would be funny if you buy these. Dragonus can use this if IceFrog implemented it in the future versions.

Harass enemy early. Do this during an early game so that they can't farm easily and have a very good lane control.

Map-awareness.Watch the mini- map sometimes. They might gank you so that you can't farm easily.

During team clashes, target the most strong or weak in the other team. Target the tanks or supports of your enemy team so that your team will win. Use your Mystic Flare when 2 or 3 enemies are compressed in a small area.

Don't do kill-stealing.That would be bad for your teammates because of your GREEDINESS for kills.

Conclusion

If you are using Dragonus, remember this: weaken the enemy's ranks before they will got the upper hand. Thanks for reading this Guide. Just correct or add something if I lack something about this Hero.
Thank you.

Changelogs

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December 31, 2011: Started to make this guide.
January 2, 2012: Reworked it. It's so messy.
January 3, 2012: Added screen shots. Added Gauntlets of Ogre Strength to the Starting Build. Added Bracer and Dagon to the Core Build.
January 6, 2012: Remove Dagon and replaced it with Eul's. Some additions and changes.
January 17, 2012: Added something.